JM Ryerson: Money Isn’t Everything: The Keys to Living Your Best Life

Disclaimer: Transcripts were generated automatically and may contain inaccuracies and errors.

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Today’s guest is a successful entrepreneur in his fourth business in 20 years, he’s an Amazon bestselling author of the book titled let’s go win the keys to living your best life and champions daily playbook with a passion to help other succeed. He coaches, athletes, executives, and leaders on peak performance.

We talk about the valuable insights you can discover in your first world problems that help you decide how to live your life by design, please welcome J M Ryerson. You’re ready to grow your business. And I love helping entrepreneurs find success. So let’s do this. I’m Damon Burton, Forbes contributor, author of the search engine optimization book, outrank and president of SEO national.

I’ve been featured on Forbes, entrepreneur and hundreds of websites and podcasts for helping big businesses grow bigger and make more money by showing up higher on search engines, including shark tank, featured businesses, NBA teams, and Inc 5,000 company. I’m bringing my successful network to you here@learningfromothers.com.

Whether success to you means financial freedom, freedom of time or freedom of the soul. We’re in this together. Welcome to the learning from others podcast.

Ready to show up higher on search engines for words that you can monetize, but without paying for ads, download your free copy of my SEO book outrank. If you visit www.freeseobook.com. Jim Ryerson. What’s up, man. Thanks for jumping on warning from others. Hey man. What’s up brother? Thanks for having me, man.

I appreciate it. Yeah. Um, so we, uh, I’m excited to talk with you. I got a lot of, a lot of things here in the notes that I want to hit on, but why don’t you give our listeners the crash course on what’s your background and what are we gonna learn from you? Um, my background is, uh, I guess I’ve been an entrepreneur now for gosh, 20 years, which is kind of crazy to think that it doesn’t feel that long.

I feel like I just looked back. It wasn’t that long ago, but this is my fourth company that I’ve been a part of building. I just love it, man. I love helping people, uh, you know, do as, you know, reach their potential or what they didn’t think they could do that gets me out of bed. Fires me up. So what are you going to learn today?

Uh, changing your, your mindset and simplicity, I guess, would be the two things that if somebody said, what are you decent at? Those would be the two things that, you know, I do believe whether you think you can or can’t you’re right. Henry Ford so that that’s not mine, but I do believe. Very very much so in that regard that if, if you do believe you can do something you can, and then I really do believe in simplicity because we have a busy enough world.

I want to make your life more simple, not harder. So that’s what I hope I can bring to your audience and to the table. I love that. I’m actually, I mean, we haven’t even dug into any of these topics yet, but those are things that, that I really live by. So I think we’re going to resonate on a lot of those.

So I’m going to poke you on a couple of these topics. So, all right, before we get into the question, number two is what are you. Uh, I suck at marketing and self-promotion, and maybe those are tied together, but man, I, my wife gets so irritated. She’s like, Are you helping people? Yes. Well, why don’t you talk about, I don’t know, I have this weird thing where I don’t want to, for lack of a better term sound douchey.

I just, I don’t. Hey, have you read my book? It just sounds so weird to me. So I really am not very good at that and something that I’m trying to get better at, not for me, but for the people I want to say. Uh, dude, I’m right there with ya. Um, so a lot of it, it’s one of the things that when I’m on the other side of the mic, I often talk about is like how to sell without being salesy.

And it’s, I’m in the exact same position that you described. I like helping other people. Um, I like bringing out potential. I like helping. Those that believe, you know, and, and whether they, if they don’t, then I agreed in their, their right as well. Um, but yeah, like you don’t want to be the total douche bag.

And so what I’ve found and I’m sure the same for you is, is when you just bring the value, then, then it helps them anyways. Like you can help without being the pukey guy. But yeah, I mean, there’s, you can probably help more people, but it’s. It’s a cringy thing to swallow. It’s a weird thing that like, so for instance, dancing, I love to dance, but yet if people like, oh, you’re in the circle on the spotlight, I always shy away from it.

And my wife was like, Hey, people like to watch you dance. They have a good time. So it’s not about you. And so it’s, I’m trying to flip it a little bit. But it’s, it is one of those things. I’m a simple kid from Montana, man. It’s like, I guess I just grew up in that way where you don’t talk about yourself.

That’s kind of the way I was raised. So it’s kind of weird to be like, Hey, have you gone to my podcast every time? It’s just something that I’m need to work on because I’m making it about myself. So that’s kind of the misnomer about it is by not talking about it. I’m making it about myself and not them.

Yeah. So what got you into entrepreneurship? You know, actually I just was working corporate and I realized that I could only make so much. Somebody told me where I had to be, and I didn’t like those rules. So I went to a job interview and he’s like, you can make as much money as you want and you can golf.

And with those two things, I was like done. Now my wife at the time, uh, not she wasn’t my wife, my wife now who was my girlfriend time, went to the next interview. That was something they did. And she actually asked all the real questions, like, what does he have to do? What’s this all about? And so I kind of fell into it.

Honestly, brother, I thought I was going to be an FBI agent, but uh, just went down a different road and. I realized that I really like not having somebody tell me where I have to be, how much money I can make. I don’t like being told what to do is kind of what I’ve realized. And so entrepreneur ship just really resonated with me.

I didn’t realize that at the time both my folks worked at the same place for 35 and 39. But for me doing and creating something, I just, I fallen in love with it and it’s something I I’ve learned to embrace, but I didn’t know that coming out of college. Yeah. And once you’re in it, W once you realize that you appreciate it, there’s no turning back.

It is like taking, what is it? The red pill, I guess once you do, you’re like, oh, this is pretty good. Now look, many days suck. That’s the other thing people don’t tell you as an entrepreneur, a lot of days are really hard. You don’t know if you have checks coming in in the beginning, blah, blah, blah. But, you know what?

I look back on those times when I didn’t have a dime to my name, my wife, and I would put the couches again. We weren’t married at the time, but we put two couches together, watch football and cook, macaroni and cheese and have peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with $0 to my name. And some of my happiest days.

I love what I have now. Don’t get me wrong. But don’t think it’s all about where you’re going. It’s live in that moment. And I look back without any idea of what the future had for me. I loved not having any responsibility. I love not having any money at the time. And so it’s just funny, man, because I didn’t know that at time you always have these big dreams and aspirations, but I look back and some of your worst times, quote, unquote are some of your best.

Yeah. Do you mind if I ask how long. Oh, gosh, darn you put me on stuff 16 years. I know that 2005, 16 years. So, uh, yeah, it’s, it’s a, we have two kiddos and it’s been an awesome ride. Uh, a tough ride, like any marriage, right? Uh, but uh, 16 years ago. Good, congrats. We, uh, we are, I think we are entrepreneurial.

Soulmates in some respect because I’m, I’m creeping up on 15 years, uh, um, in, as an entrepreneur and this week is 15 years of being married as well. So I can appreciate a lot of the stuff that you’ve gone through and, and, um, some of the stories of, you know, the simplicity, why don’t we use this to transition to simplicity because.

You know, I agree that some of those early days of entrepreneurship of like figuring things out and trying to set the pace for your future self, like those were some of the most memorable times and rewarding times looking back. And then what’s funny is like, the way I describe it now is, is, you know, when you’re first in entrepreneurship, you want all the money in the world, but then for me what’s happened and you can tell me if it’s same for you.

Is it evolves over time to where. You, you only want as much as little as possible to maintain a lifestyle. And then the rest of that, I want the simplicity. I want the time with my family, I’m starting to unbind things. I don’t want another car. I don’t want like another, I don’t want a four-wheel or I don’t want all those other things, because with all those things becomes responsibility.

Everything you think about that causes stress in your life, or the majority of them is like taking care of shit. Like something you got to take. Well, now that I know we can cut, so that’s good. So it is totally taking care of shit. It’s so funny, man. I remember when I made my first seven figure year and I was like, oh, we’re going to go buy the cabin.

And trust me, we’d love the cabin, but it created so much stress on us. And it was the only place you too. Yes. Yeah. I it’s funny when you. Especially if you didn’t come from money and I know I’ve read your background, so I know you didn’t right. And you’re like, oh, this is what I want. But the truth is no money is cool for security.

I know that sounds weird. And people are like, screw you, man. Money’s important. I get that, but all the material stuff, it doesn’t mean anything to me at this point. It is all about my kids, my wife, their health. Can we go on a vacation if they want to? Cool. I’m a home body actually. That’s the funny part. I love being home.

So it is funny brother. Uh, we started or, you know, it sounds like we have a very similar journey. We would accumulate things, but it just ended up weighing you down. And it was more stuff to worry about, more things. And I told my wife, I said, look, if we ever do a second or third home, we will absolutely rent those out.

They are not going to be something that we have to use. It’s something that we choose to use. And that is such a big word is what are you choosing to do? And I know I’m getting a little off topic. Choosing to do something as so important. I remember I had to because everyone else was doing it. That’s what I should be doing.

No choose what you really want, what you really care about. Don’t just do it because you see everyone else. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with all that. I’ve been fortunate to not get too crazy down the materialistic side as, as I was finding financial success. But what, what you realize as you, as you get that freedom is that that’s really what matters is the freedom you want money, not for money.

You want money for free, the freedom that it provides you in the security that provides you. And yeah, it’s funny you talk to, so we have a cabin. And I fucking hate, I love the cabin, but it’s, it was when we first got it. It was like, yeah, I’ll why don’t I build it. And then it’ll be a memory with my kids.

And it’s like, they’re they don’t want to go up there and work on the cabin. So it’s far enough now that we don’t have to deal with the building crap, but man, it was like years of, of drive and hours. And a lot of people listening are going shut up, but it’s the stress of those added things. And it’s. You got to go up and I don’t know what your property’s like, but you know, I have to go mow the lawn there every once in a while, or I got to go like spray weeds or I got to like whatever.

And so it’s, for me, the problem is not the labor behind it. It’s the mental bandwidth of going, oh shit, I got this thing and that thing and this thing and that thing. Um, a hundred percent and it does sound, it, it is first world problems, but we also created those unnecessarily, which takes away from our true purpose.

Like my true purpose is that freedom is to go to all of my kids’ ball games is to be with my it’s. Not that if we create a memory at that cabin or any cabin, Cool. But again, when you add that stress unnecessarily, you’re taken away and every time you say yes to something, you’re saying no to something else.

And that is one of the most profound things I had to learn into my early thirties where it was like, I would say yes, just because that’s what you feel like you’re supposed to do say no, sometimes you have to say no so that you can say yes to the things that are actually important to you. Yeah, my, my wife’s gone through like a big discovery phase in the last year or two and saying no is a big part of that.

You know, I’ve always encouraged her to, to, you know, find out who she is outside of mom and wife and, you know, not always fulfill obligated to say yes to the things. And so she said no a lot in the last year and she’s are, you can already see that she’s becoming a different, more confident person. It’s awesome.

And congrats to her because it’s a, it’s a big journey that everybody should find for themselves. All right, let’s talk. You got you. So this is your fourth business now, have you completely exited the other three? And what are what’s the evolution of the four? Yeah. Such a good question. So, no, I’m on permanent sabbatical at this point from my third company, the first company was, it was probably the most rad company I ever built.

It was literally me and another dude. We were young, hungry. We were inspired every single day and we were so inspired that we decided to make. With another company to go national. Cause we only had eight locations at the time. Is this a retail? No, sorry. It was in financial services. It was, uh, we helped people with their pension, retirement life insurance annuities.

And so we decided cool. We got a cool thing, basically kind of like franchises, if you will. That’s not how they were set up, but that would be the idea. We had eight locations and we’re like, Hey, let’s go nationwide. And we merged with another group. And there were five total business partners. Well, that was six years of hell.

And I literally had loads waking up every single day to go to work. And so finally with this, you know, again, great set up, blah, blah, blah. I hated it though. And now is affecting my marriage. It’s affecting my relationships because I didn’t like it. So then the third company, we were going to create our own and, and step aside, and I found somebody, I really just value wise.

We, we met. So again, did actually another merger with the other gentlemen that, uh, I had started the first two businesses with, and we came together. And so now we did create something national and that’s the one that is just kind of running. And that doesn’t mean that I couldn’t be doing stuff, but they’re allowing me to work on my purpose, which is let’s go win.

And truly brother, like everybody says, you’re crazy. Why wouldn’t you just continue to build that thing? Because my purpose is let’s go win. I get inspired every morning to work with people, to inspire them, to live their best lives. And. It’s just my wife. She gets, she gets a little thing. She’s like, what are you doing, man?

Why don’t you just enjoy it? Because I have to do this. I, this is what I have yearned to do. I just didn’t know it for a long time. And so that’s what I’m doing, man. This is a, the fourth company and, and this is the one that I’m given my blood, sweat and tears, you know, until. You know, poor analogy, but it’s just, that’s what I do every single morning, but guess what?

I’m filling my bucket and I’m growing every single day meeting with guys like you and gals that are just incredible human beings, changing the world. And I get to do that every single day as a job. It’s pretty awesome. So how do, what does that encompass as a job? So I ride a hell of a lot. Um, I do a blog, a weekly deal, and then I do a lot of podcasts, both as a host and then as a guest, and then I’ve built some courses, but I’m really getting jazzed about doing more speaking.

Now that the world’s opening up again, not for me to be the main part. That’s not the point I, what I’ve found is I love being around other people. Face to face. This is cool. And I get to this, this technology is amazing. I get to know Damon to a degree, right. And I get to see you and connect. But if I got to meet you, give you a handshake by the end of that five minute conversation, I’m giving you a hug.

Goodbye. I love that. And I’ve missed that. And I think the pandemic has brought that more out of me than ever before. So I guess that would be the third part is just kind of the speaking and I’m going to create another challenge just so I can connect with more. Uh, on zoom that aren’t quite to that place, but that’s what I do every single day.

And, and writing is something I love to do. Podcasting is probably my next love other than reading. So those are my three favorite things to do on a daily basis. So, how do you work with, with people? So you get out, you do podcasts, you speaking, you inspire them and then how do you help them as one of your clients?

Yeah, that’s a good question, man. So forever I would do one-on-one coaching. And this is any of my guys that are listening guys. Individual coaching takes so much time. So what I’ve decided is I’m not doing anymore and I’ve slowly started to let all my clients know like, Hey, I’m not going to retain you.

One-on-one however, we can go in a group because here’s the truth. It’s not something magical that I’m necessarily doing. A lot of it has to do with accountability showing up and actually having. Give a shit about what you’re trying to do and really have vested interest in you back and forth. Right. And so, so often it was me doing that one-on-one and I’m like, this is wasting time because I should be doing this with 10 people, 20 people, a hundred people at a time.

And so that’s what I’m really going to Damon. And what I’ve found is the energy. Uh, the culture that is developed is so much greater than just one-on-one that I can do. So that’s where I’m going with the coaching side of things. And that’s why when I. Corporations and their teams. I get so fired up because I get to be a part of that team.

There’s nothing more satisfying for me as a human being than to work with a, a, a synergistic team that is clear on where they’re going and we go hit it together so much better than doing it by myself. And the one-on-one coaching was the same way. It’s cool to help one person, but what if you can help 101.

Yeah, I think the accountability and community thing, you, you nailed it. Um, you know, my, the listeners know my background is SEO and, and I did a course and the thing with doing one-on-one consulting, um, you know, for me, it was like an upsell of the course. And then. You don’t get the vibe as much, and then you, and then your customer also doesn’t get as much accountability.

And so when you put it in a community environment, they have more opportunities for accountability, but they also have more opportunities to learn. And then, like you said, there there’s more opportunity for you to spread your message. And, and, and for me, an interesting thing, the pivot that I’m making in, in that approach is that from the entrepreneur’s perspective, uh, It’s an interesting concept that you can sell the community as well.

So for me, like I was charging thousands of dollars for this course, and I’m going to start doing it for free and then just selling access to the community because then you get the best of both worlds. You get to help more people because you’re giving that away for free, but then you also get to share the accountability and the community that the benefits, every.

Dude. I love that. And like we said earlier saying no sometimes is so important because again, if you’re only giving it to that one person, you’re saying, if you’re saying yes to this one person, you’re saying no to these, this group of people. And like you said, man, as much as you know about SEO, which.

Radical and, and something, I don’t know, as I told your marketing is not my forte, but there’s other people in that community that are going to say, oh, Damon had told me this boom, and they share it and you just can’t replicate it, man. It’s not duplicatable. One-on-one when you get 10, 20, 30 people all bringing their energy and thoughts to the table, some are good.

Some are. But it’s this energy that can’t be created. One-on-one so let’s, let’s actually talk about bad for a minute. Um, do you, do you run into, as you continue to grow your visibility, have you started to hit haters? Oh, yes. That’s when I knew, I told my wife, I said, look, going into this public space, just know, cause she loves me.

People are going to say really bad things about me at some point. I said, baby, when that happens, just know that we’ve done pretty well at that point. Um, and so it, it’s funny because everything I do. Preach. I hate to use that word, but that I talk about is positivity is solution-based is, you know, how do we go when I do talk about failure, but, um, I always try to, you know, what’s the positive spin.

Some people don’t like that, man. Some people want to be miserable and that’s okay. And that’s what I told her a long time ago. The, the goal of our company is to inspire people to live their best lives. And I said, there’s no way before I’m six feet underground that’s ever accomplished. And that’s why I know it’s the right goal because there’s no way every human being is going to get on board.

But that makes me wake up every day. Not because it’s egotistical for me. The ideas, the movement. I want people to win in life. It’s just, I love it. I think the more we all win, that is a habit. And so as, as losing, but to answer your question, that was a long-winded explanation, but yes, some people don’t like me.

That’s cool. I love you. How do you know when to stop putting effort into trying to help somebody because of the people that want to be miserable, the have the victim mentality mindset that are never going to change. At what point do you go? Now I can help this wounded bird. And then, and then he got shit, this is a lost cause.

Yeah. This one I’m still working on. And if, if anybody’s worked with me, they know, man, I, I can’t help, but I, I believe in everybody, I really do. How do I know when I ask the question, am I really helping you? And if they can’t answer emphatically with results, like they can’t look at JM. We started 90 days ago and something significant has changed my life, whether it’s my health, my relationships, you know, my business, if something hasn’t radically shifted for the positive.

I’m not doing my job. So I’ve really gone to the results based to look at what we said we were going to do and where we actually at. And if we I’ve told my clients many times, if that hasn’t significantly improved, you need to fire me or I will fire you. And so we enter our relationship very clear on that.

Like this is a results-based organization and Daniel pink actually wrote about and drive. And that’s where I started to get it. It’s a results only work environment. R O w E. If you’re not getting results with me, it doesn’t matter that you’d like me. That is not why we entered into this relationship. You entered in the relationship to go when to succeed.

So if that’s not happening, let’s just call it what it is part ways. And you go find somebody else that can do a better job. How long of a timeframe do you give to, to kind of set expectations? 90 days is, is the base of what I start everything on because I do believe in 90 days you can really make great shifts.

But the reason I put 90 days is that’s really to create some of the small, basic habits that you have to do in order to win the day when that morning. Uh, so that’s the first bass that I do. I’ve done year long contracts. And some longer, but I don’t love those because I like the pressure cooker of, Hey, let’s check in every 90 days.

How are we doing good, bad, indifferent. I’d like to see the results. I want the feedback and if it’s not positive, we’re going to evaluate, should we continue on this? And typically it’s really, uh, because we’ve set that expectation. It’s really quite obvious. Like, Nope, you’re not, you’re not the guy or gal for me.

And both ways have happened. I’ve let people go. Even though they are some of the highest paying clients, I’m like, eh, this isn’t fulfilling what I need to be doing in my life. So we’re going to go ahead and stop and vice versa, like JM. I’m just not hearing your message. No problem. Let’s be. So what’s going on in the 90 days?

Like where do you start? Is it like once a week kind of thing? And then it gets paced out further along as you go. Yeah. I have a couple of different ones going on. So, and again, this is not to self-promote cause I know I said I w but I start with champions daily playbook and it’s a small journal that I wrote.

It’s like 11 pages. And then it’s 90 days of. Everything in that book. What I realized is I was doing with all my clients, but I was doing it sporadically and I’m telling them do this. And I’m like, why don’t you just write about it? So we wrote about it and that’s where I start, because. Literally it starts with, with your mindset, in my opinion, setting your daily intention.

What am I going to do today? I’m going to be present just like I chose with, with today. I’m going to be present in every moment. So when I’m with Damon, I’m giving Damon and his audience, everything. I have nothing else in the world matters. Right? Other than you and your audience. And then once we’re done, I’m going to go to the next project.

I’m going to give it everything I have. So that’s the first thing that we do in that. Then we get into practicing gratitude, which I’m sure everybody’s heard about. Sure. That’s kind of the popular thing to do, but it’s true. What do you, what are you grateful for? Go through those three things and then there’s just various things.

It takes about five minutes a day. But literally, it’s just checking in. What are we going to do today? How has our activity activity, excuse me, how’s our attitude. And we reflect every night to say I did good. I did bad. I could do better tomorrow. Cool. All right. Well, as we’re getting kind of closer to wrapping up, I want to touch on, uh, one off the topic thing.

So you are a 12 pound baby. Naturally given my mother and I love her. Thank you, mama. And I’m sorry. That’s all. That’s what we’re going to end it on

a J I haven’t spent a bunch of talking. I want to give you the last few moments to let our listeners know how they can find out more about you. Thank you, Damon. I appreciate that brother. Yeah, you can go to let’s go win.com. It has all the books. You can find the podcast, which is let’s go win podcasts, and then let’s go win 365 on any social media platform.

Like Damon said earlier, whether you like it or don’t. I like to hear from everyone because I want to get better myself. So I would love to connect with anybody and if I can help you in any way. Cool. And I just appreciate you, man. And thank you for having me. It’s a, uh, you’re obviously an awesome dude.

That’s helping a lot of people and thanks for letting me be a part of it. No, I appreciate that. Likewise. All right, everybody. J M Ryerson, let’s go in doc on Daymond Burton here and thank you so much for listening to the learning from others. I sincerely hope that today’s guest helped you learn something since 2007, I’ve generated millions of dollars for businesses like yours.

Ready to show up higher on search engines for words that you can monetize, but without paying for ads, download your free copy of my new SEO book outrank. If you visit www.freeseobook.com today.